From culture to politics : the writings of Pramoedya A. Toer, 1950-1965

Abstract

The thesis traces the development in the social consciousness of a noted Indonesian prose writer Pramoedya Ananta Toer (b.1925) from 1950 to 1965. In doing so it analyses his literary writings In the context of the intellectual debates on cultural and political issues in the period. The thesis argues that while in the early 50s Pramoedya was critical of the cultural values and norms of his society by which the common people (the wong-cilik) were disadvantaged, underlying his early writings is his acceptance of the basic tenant that the elite priyayi (imperfect as they can be) are "superior" to the wong-cilik.It is the priyayi who are depicted to be the ones with idealism and dedication, while the wong -cilik (when they are not depicted as "docile") are the ones who are capable of committing atrocious acts. His outlook changed as the mood of the intellectual debates in the coountry slowly become "progressive " after Sukarno's konsepai in 1957 . Despite his status as an award-winning novelist, since the early 1950s Pramoedya had felt increasingly alienated from the views expressed by the literary establishment of the period, the Gelanggang group. After the konsepai he became closely associated with the opposing literary group, the Lekra It was then that Pramoedya began to question the conventional prejudices in his society, particularly on the threat of communism. That led him to finally reject the basic social framework that he had unconsciously adopted in his early writings. Now he was capable of seeing that the cultural norms as set by the priyayi are not tenable as "virtues". Rather, they are ploys by the elite to keep the wong-cilik (culturally) inferior to them, and thus force the wong-cilik to accept their subservient to the priyayi. His progressive and radical understanding of his society is depicted well in his best work, Gadis Pantai, published in 1962. In it he depicts how members of the wong-cilik can feel resentful about their culturally and politically enforced inferiority to the priyayi. GP implies that conflicts are inherent to society. It portrays the mood of the social and political tensions in the society of the time. These conflicts manifested themselves in the literary debates that surrounded the Cultural Manifesto in 1963 and the two opposing literary conferences of 1964 . All of these were "mock battles" (perang kembang) for the crushing of the left in 1965. In restrospect his life story seems to have been predicted by himself. In 1950, Pramoedya portrayed those who pursued radical change and who questioned the dominant norms in society as doomed. When Pramoedya acted out the life of those characters his own fate reflected with grim irony the stories he himself had composed. Show more